CentreSoft | Code Like It's 198x

CentreSoft began as one man, a garage and a Galaxian clone. In 1982 Geoff Brown, a schoolteacher and part-time musician, persuaded the Birmingham branch of Currys to take twenty copies of an American Atari cassette he had imported, then found that the American publisher would give him thirty days to pay. Four years later Your Computer reckoned that the labels under the CentreSoft banner accounted for “well over 50 per cent of the market”. Along the way the distributor paid for a publisher, U.S. Gold, and it outlived that publisher by decades: CentreSoft is still trading from Holford, in Birmingham.

Fast facts

Founded: 1982, by Geoff Brown, trading as Softcell; renamed CentreSoft early in 1983. Anne Brown, his wife, joined him in running it.
Company: CentreSoft Limited, incorporated on 26 October 1982 as Bamville Limited and renamed on 28 April 1983.
Addresses: 26 Great Cornbow, Halesowen; then the Tipton Trading Estate; then Heneage Street, Birmingham; from June 1986, Holford Way, Birmingham.
Business: wholesale distribution of games to British shops.
Financed: U.S. Gold, founded in 1984.
Owners: the Browns and their CentreGold group to 1996; Eidos briefly; Activision from 1997; its own management from 2024.

From Softcell to CentreSoft

Brown had been working part-time in the Birmingham music shop of Mike Woodroffe, who had moved from selling Atari 800s to distributing them. “So I sort of stole the idea of distributing from Mike really,” Brown told the authors of The Story of US Gold. The Currys buyer, Mike Griffin, showed the imported Galactic Chase to colleagues in other branches and later became the games buyer for the whole chain, and Brown’s garage in a terraced house filled “front to back, floor to ceiling”. He took an office at 26 Great Cornbow in Halesowen, in the West Midlands, and traded as Softcell.

The name did not last. By Brown’s account an American company called Softcell threatened to sue, then paid him £7,000 to change it. “We’re selling software in the centre of the country, we said to each other, so why don’t we call ourselves CentreSoft?” The new name was in the trade press by March 1983, when a CentreSoft advertisement in Computer & Video Games announced “a change of name” and a range that had grown from Atari software to programs for the VIC-20, Commodore 64 and Texas Instruments machines. The same issue’s news pages described the company as “Halesowen-based Centresoft”.

The limited company came slightly later. Bamville Limited, a shelf company incorporated in October 1982, was renamed CentreSoft Limited on 28 April 1983, and The Story of US Gold dates its first trading to 1 July 1983. The accountant Martyn Savage, who would join as finance director in 1985, remembered the first meeting: “all they had was a table to gather round and milk crates to sit on.” The first business plan projected a turnover of £600,000 to £850,000 for the nine months to December 1983, and the local NatWest manager agreed a £100,000 facility after a trip to the pub. Anne Brown was still working at a bank, so Geoff did the paperwork himself: “Delivery notes, invoices etc. — I just entered the details in a little blue book.” The first employee, Jenny Richards, later became head of sales.

Atari’s importer

By the autumn of 1983 CentreSoft had outgrown Halesowen and moved to Unit 16 of the Tipton Trading Estate. Its advertisements listed dozens of “CentreSoft stockists” around Britain, promised new Atari titles “within days of launch date”, and offered free replacement of faulty media. In October 1983 Computer & Video Games quoted “Jeff Brown, of Centre Soft, the biggest importer of Atari software in this country”, explaining that British prices for Atari programs tracked American ones once shipping was added. Software houses such as Terminal Software and The English Software Company named CentreSoft among their wholesale distributors in their own advertisements.

The distributor that paid for a publisher

Late in 1983 Brown signed three Commodore 64 games in America, promising the licensors sales guarantees that they wanted secured by letters of credit. Only CentreSoft’s banking could provide them, and in March 1984 the Browns set up U.S. Gold to publish the games. When it needed more money than the distributor could raise, Ocean’s Jon Woods and David Ward took half of U.S. Gold, and CentreSoft was already, by Brown’s account, the biggest buyer of Ocean’s games. The distribution margin, The Story of US Gold notes, was about 16.5%; publishing paid far better.

The Browns divided the work. “I was the person thinking the creative things. Anne was the steady hand on the tiller,” Geoff recalled. Tim Chaney, who ran U.S. Gold, described Jenny Richards as “the most powerful person under Anne”.

Controlling the shelves

In 1985 CentreSoft moved into Birmingham, to the Parkway Industrial Centre off Heneage Street, and in June 1986 CentreSoft and U.S. Gold moved together to Holford Way, beside the M6. Its growth came from the high street. Savage and Anne Brown won the telesales contract for John Menzies’ 119 stores after the book distributor Websters lost it. When Websters went into receivership shortly before Christmas, Boots asked CentreSoft to cover the season. Your Computer reported in February 1986 that CentreSoft “may well still further strengthen their hand by winning the contract to distribute to Boots”. Chaney remembered keeping the account for six years.

The same Your Computer news story set out how much of the market the group touched. U.S. Gold had just taken on Ultimate Play the Game, and “this, combined with other labels under the Centresoft banner such as Gremlin Graphics, Ocean, and Imagine means that the company controls marketing and promotion of products which account for well over 50 per cent of the market.”

Two of those labels were closer to the Browns than the word “banner” suggests. Geoff Brown was managing director of Sheffield’s Gremlin Graphics as well as CentreSoft and U.S. Gold in 1984, and he later described owning 75% of it. Jenny Richards was going out with Gremlin’s Ian Stewart, and later married him. And the compilation label The Hit Squad, remembered as an Ocean brand, was by The Story of US Gold’s account a joint venture that relied on CentreSoft being the primary distributor for the big publishers.

Looking back in Retro Gamer in 2005, Brown and Chaney both said CentreSoft had become the biggest distributor in Britain. In Chaney’s words it did so “having Menzies and Boots as exclusive accounts”.

CentreGold, Eidos and Activision

In August 1991 CentreSoft, U.S. Gold and the Browns’ smaller businesses were brought together as CentreGold, which floated on the stock market in October 1993. CentreSoft kept its own name as the group’s distribution arm. In 1992 Amiga Format described it as a division “equally large” as U.S. Gold, controlling “the movement of software to over 4000 outlets from department stores to small independents”. The prospectus figures reproduced in The Story of US Gold show distribution turnover of £26.7 million in 1991 and £37.0 million in 1993. In 1992–93, by the book’s account, U.S. Gold’s profits overtook CentreSoft’s for the first time.

Eidos bought CentreGold in 1996, dropped the U.S. Gold name and sold the distributor on. Activision’s annual reports record the purchase of Combined Distribution (Holdings) Ltd, trading as CentreSoft, on 26 November 1997. It became the base for Activision’s distribution business in Europe, alongside the German distributor NBG, which GamesMarket says had also been part of Activision since 1997. “After fourteen years I was really glad to sell it,” Brown said.

Independent again

CentreSoft stayed inside Activision, and Activision Blizzard, for more than 25 years. After Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, CentreSoft’s chief executive, David Neal, and his management team bought the company out on 19 June 2024, with the German arm, NBG, included. NBG was renamed CentreSoft GmbH in September 2025. The company still trades from Holford, Birmingham, as a distributor of games from Sony, EA, Take-Two and others, and its own website dates the business to 1983.

Sources

Chris Wilkins and Roger M. Kean, The Story of US Gold (Fusion Retro Books, 2015). This is a modern book built on interviews with Geoff Brown, Tim Chaney, Martyn Savage and others; quotations and figures from it are their recollections. pp. 14–17 (Mike Woodroffe, Galactic Chase, Currys and Mike Griffin, the garage, Great Cornbow, Softcell), pp. 18–21 (Savage’s first meeting, the Softcell dispute and the £7,000, the change of name, Bamville Ltd, the business plan, the NatWest facility, the “little blue book”, Jenny Richards, Tipton, Heneage Street, Holford Way, trading from 1 July 1983), p. 39 (the 16.5% distribution margin; CentreSoft as Ocean’s biggest buyer), pp. 53–57 (Savage joining in April 1985; Anne Brown; Menzies; Boots after Websters’ receivership), pp. 64–67 (Gremlin Graphics, Jenny Richards, Chaney’s “most powerful person under Anne”), p. 68 (The Hit Squad and CentreSoft as primary distributor), pp. 98–105 (CentreGold, the prospectus turnover figures, the profit chart, the flotation), p. 112 (the sale to Activision).
Computer & Video Games issue 17, March 1983, p. 17 (news: “Halesowen-based Centresoft”) and p. 20 (CentreSoft trade advertisement, “As Softcell, we led the way”).
Computer & Video Games issue 22, August 1983, p. 95: CentreSoft Atari advertisement and stockist list.
Computer & Video Games issue 24, October 1983, p. 33 (“Jeff Brown, of Centre Soft, the biggest importer of Atari software in this country”) and p. 103 (CentreSoft House, Unit 16, Tipton Trading Estate).
Commodore User issue 1, October 1983, p. 15 (Terminal Software advertisement), and Computer & Video Games issue 25, November 1983, p. 180 (The English Software Company advertisement): CentreSoft named among their distributors.
CRASH issue 10, November 1984, p. 90: Geoff Brown as managing director of Gremlin Graphics and of CentreSoft/U.S. Gold; see Gremlin Graphics.
Your Computer, February 1986, p. 15: “Ultimate turn Gold”, the labels under the CentreSoft banner, and the Boots contract.
Amiga Format Special issue 4, 1992, pp. 111–112: U.S. Gold company profile, CentreSoft and its 4,000 outlets.
Retro Gamer issue 22, 2005, pp. 67–71: U.S. Gold feature with Geoff Brown and Tim Chaney.
Activision, Inc., Form 10-K annual report for the year to March 2001 (public record, SEC): purchase of Combined Distribution (Holdings) Ltd, trading as CentreSoft, 26 November 1997. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/718877/000091205701521517/a2052327z10-k.htm
Companies House, CentreSoft Limited, company number 01673860 (public record). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01673860
Marriott Harrison, “Marriott Harrison supports CentreSoft on its management buyout from Activision Blizzard” (web, secondary), and MarketScreener’s deal report of 19 June 2024 (web, secondary). https://www.marriottharrison.com/work/marriott-harrison-supports-centresoft-on-its-management-buyout-from-activision-blizzard
GamesMarket, “NBG Distribution renamed as CentreSoft GmbH”, 24 September 2025 (web, secondary). https://www.gamesmarket.global/new-name-nbg-distribution-renamed-as-centresoft-gmbh-567a4fe98d24bf76b2424ece7ec74964/
CentreSoft, company page (web, secondary). https://www.centresoft.co.uk/company